With so much going on in our area and around the globe it may be a bit confusing to try to figure out what is going on with the Seattle Housing Market.
COVID-19, civil rights activity, the economy in general… it is a mouthful.
The real estate world almost seems like an afterthought, unless you are needing to move of course.
A few trends that have emerged out of this situation is that people are trending toward moving out of the city and toward the suburbs. People are needing an extra bedroom or office for working at home. Because we have all spent so much more time at home many are thinking that more space and a bigger yard are appealing.
While we have seen a record number of people apply for unemployment we are still seeing jobs being produced in the tech sector.
In addition it is actually possible to get a home loan rate in the 2’s!! Let me repeat that, you can get a home loan with an interest rate that starts with 2.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”The Realtor.com Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue area housing market recovery index is 10% higher than it was in January of 2020.” quote=”The Realtor.com Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue area housing market recovery index is 10% higher than it was in January of 2020.” theme=”style2″]
Real Estate Is Moving Forward
February was a banner month for real estate and we were all set for another Extreme Frenzy spring market… then the shelter in place. Real Estate was literally closed for 3 days. Then a 40% +/- drop in March.
It was not buyers that stopped buying, but sellers stopped selling. Fear of opening up their home in the middle of a Pandemic, who could blame them.
As the world starts to adjust to the New Normal in Real Estate, it is very important that we in Seattle not listen to the national pundits. From a global perspective the world is in bad shape… but here in Seattle we kinda just keep on keeping on.
Realtor Weekly Housing Market Recover Index Graph
In order to help potential real estate clients Realtor.com has created a weekly Housing Market Recovery Index. Normally I would not pay much attention to a tool like this because Seattle is nowhere near any national averages, but this tool can pull exclusively for each local market.
In fact the graph directly below represents the Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue market. The graph below that represents the US market.
SEATTLE-TACOMA-BELLEVUE WEEK OF JUNE 13th TO 20th
UNITED STATES WEEK OF JUNE 13th TO 20th
The guide shows how the bad news has impacted the residential real estate market in 50 different major markets across the US. The index leverages a weighted average of four key components of the housing industry, tracking each of the following:
Pace of Sales – Difference in time-on-market
Home Price – Growth in asking prices
Housing Demand – Growth in online search activity
Housing Supply – Growth of new listings
The index then compares the current status “to the last week of January 2020 market trend, as a baseline for pre-COVID market growth. The overall index is set to 100 in this baseline period. The higher a market’s index value, the higher its recovery and vice versa”, according to Realtor.com.
What we can see is that our Local Area is shooting up past the baseline period, while the national graph is still well underneath the baseline.
The Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue area housing market recovery index is 10% higher than it was in January of 2020.
Summary
The last time that we experienced turmoil in our economy in 2009 it was the housing market that was largely responsible for the outcome. Poor business practices by banks and the real estate professionals.
This time the real estate industry is in the position to lead us out of this trouble.
“As the nation reopens, housing is well-positioned to lead the economy forward.” Dean Mon, Chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
Whether or not you lean on the side of real estate being hurt or real estate being the solution one thing is clear. Make sure that you do not use the national media to judge the Seattle real estate market.
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